Skip to main content
Main

Currie of Nice

A curry with rice, onion, butter, curry powder, and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Currie of Nice

Ingredients

Directions

Make the curry paste

  1. Fry the sliced onion in butter until soft.

  2. Pound the onion with salt, curry powder, and butter into a paste.

Prepare and combine

  1. Boil and drain the rice as if serving with curry.

  2. In a stewpan, mix the rice with 2 ounces of butter.

  3. Stir the pounded paste and cream into the rice over low heat.

  4. Mix thoroughly and heat until warmed through, then serve.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Onion + ricetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,433 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Butter + ricetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,645 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Onion + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together10,827 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

Onion and cream barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 10,827 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Onion
Softens and sweetens as it fries, forming the base flavour of the paste.
Butter
Carries the curry flavour and gives the rice richness and a smooth mouthfeel.
Curry powder
Provides the spiced aroma that defines the dish.
Carolina rice
Forms the bulk of the dish, absorbing the butter, paste and cream.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, softening the spiced flavour and giving a creamy texture.

The step that matters

Stir the pounded paste and cream into the rice over low heat. Cream and butter can separate or scorch if overheated, and gentle heat lets the paste disperse evenly through the rice without the sauce breaking or sticking to the pan.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, rice, cream):

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Leekfits about as well
  3. Asparagusfits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, rice, cream. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

You might also like

Rice FrittersRice Fritters84 recipesSteamed RiceSteamed Rice48 recipesRice Griddle CakesRice Griddle Cakes28 recipesRice and Cheese CasseroleRice and Cheese Casserole23 recipes